The results of the poll, carried out between February 13 and 23, show that 79 percent of those consulted thought that Chavez was the country’s most well-liked president, while the former two-term president for Democratic Action, Carlos Andres Perez, trailed behind in a distant second place with 13 per cent.

Based on interviews with 1580 people surrounding their views on Venezuelan presidents prior to 2013, the poll demonstrates that Chávez continues to be held in high regard by the majority of Venezuelans, despite his death from cancer in March 2013.

In fact, the former paratrooper and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution came out as the clear winner in all categories included in the poll, and was also identified as Venezuela’s most democratic (51%) and most efficient president (57%).

In addition, 61 percent of respondents believed that Chavez was the president who had been “most concerned” with the plight of the country’s poor, while 83 percent of respondents thought that he was the president who showed “the most leadership” nationally.

Perez secured second place overall in the poll, which Hinterlaces says has a +/- 2.5 percent margin of error. Nonetheless, the former AD politician lagged behind Chavez significantly, gaining his highest rating in the category of most democratic president where he was first choice for 18 percent of participants.

Meanwhile, both Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, and the right-wing opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, continue to suffer from low levels of popularity.

In another poll carried out between January 13-18 by Hinterlaces, 35 percent of those asked said that the opposition-held National Assembly had performed “normally to poorly” in resolving the country’s economic problems since legislative elections in December 2015, while 29 percent said that it had performed “poor to very poorly”.

A huge 77 percent of respondents also voiced their opposition to the National Assembly’s latest attempt to dismiss President Nicolas Maduro through declaring his “abandonment of post,” in what many observers are labelling as an unconstitutional attempt to impeach the country’s head of state.

Finally, 53 percent of those interviewed thought that the government had “grown stronger” as a result of the actions of the opposition-controlled legislature over the last year, in opposition to 41 percent who believed that the Maduro administration “had been weakened”.